The Fox chronicles
by Werebear47
Summary: This the road that leads to many. Where will the penny land and will it even land at all. a/n: this is a story line of my creation w/ Stan Lee's characters
1. intro

I looked down at Remy, his still bleeding nose and already swollen eye suggested that I'd really done a number on him.

"Pesky little things those trigga words," the horror in his eyes as I made light of the situation didn't even begin to match my own. That pebble in a stream gumbo yaya really didn't seem to cut it, but at the moment Remy and my psycho switch are the least of my worries. That annoying little clairvoyant had predicted that I'd come to a crossroad and here it was, in the forms of two men. Before we get to all of that maybe you should know the road that led me to all of this.

My mother was a very strong woman, who ran from what she knew was wrong in order to save the man that she truly loved but there I go getting ahead of myself again because I didn't know that at the time. What I knew or rather what I believed is that my mother was a weak woman who fell in love with a cruel man and had a baby boy. That baby boys name is Beau Lafitte, he is my older brother. Ten years later, I was born as Alexandrine Lafitte but I knew that to be a lie. That cruel man was not my father, though I did love him for a time before my eyes truly opened. Before I truly saw the world for what it was, we would play games and he would call me his little fox. He really had no idea at the time. After my second sight for all things finally kicked in, I realized what had been going on for so long. He was abusing my mother, savagely beating her and she was never doing a damn thing about it. This monster's name is Elias Lafitte, an official catholic priest, if you can't appreciate the irony in that then you will feel the same about me and should waste no more of your time here. I was eight years old when I asked my mother about my real father and why we couldn't leave to be with him, the monster over heard this.

"You lying whore!" he had shouted at her. "I knew that the girl had the look of a bastard child, I knew that you were damned."

He began to cross the room knocking over chairs and everything in his way, my mother had decided not to say anything but I decided against keeping my mouth shut.

"Spousal abuse isn't a sin in da eyes of our lord?" yep that's right, I was a mouthy little bad ass by the age of eight but that's what being born with the x gene and having a super brain will give you. This seemed to upset the tyrant more.

"You little bitch, how dare you speak to me of the lord." He began to raise his hand to me and I refused to flinch. My mother flung herself at him and tried aimlessly to get him away from me but he quickly flung her to the side. That woman, the one who was willing to fight for her child was who my mother really was, her name was Annabelle Legace. After he dealt with my mother he turned back to me, but I had heard the car door open and I knew that Beau was back from his basic Seals training, so I didn't move a muscle.

"Are ya going to hit me now?" I said as venomously as I could staring into his eyes as defiantly as I could even as he reeled back to punch me.

"YOU LITTLE BITCH, YOU GODLESS LITTLE BITCH." He was all but foaming at the mouth and of all things I could have done or said I developed my snarky smile at that moment, and he was tossed against the wall by the brute that baby boy had become. My brother Beau had chocolate brown hair that was wild and unkempt at all times, his eyes were the color of warm brass and he had a physique that rivaled that of the terminator. He stood a little over 6'4 and he could easily toss his father against a wall, if that helps to paint a picture. If the picture isn't clear enough his father stood a little over 6'6 and weighed about 240 in muscle alone. At the time I thought my brother had peaked in bad assdom but over the next couple of years he grew four more inches and could easily lift a car.

After my brute of a brother broke our kitchen table with Elias, the tyrant ran out of the house. We spent the next couple of months together, the three of us. We were happier than I could ever remember us being and the Beau went away to war. My mother cried because she was afraid for him, I cried because my best friend was leaving me. We all thought that that was the worst of our troubles but we couldn't have been more naive. My abilities were rapidly progressing, I was able to learn any skill just from watching it be performed, I could completely disassemble and reassemble an engine after watching only one other person do such, I could hear a bullet slide into the chamber of a gun and deduce the amount of second it would take to get from point a to point b, I could sneak anywhere. No seriously anywhere, past anything, at any given time, ninjas have never had shit on me. Picture painting time; I was once able to sneak into a guarded house, past all the security, including the guard dogs, through a window, past a man reading in his arm chair and steal a very rare metal, but that hasn't happened at this point so I'll try to catch you up to that, it's actually a very exciting tale. Back to my hearing thing, for a time it was one of my biggest weaknesses, because I could hear about anything I was susceptible to loud noises, i;e gunshots, remember that.

Beau had only been gone for a couple of months when a man in a wheel chair came to my door, he was kind but still my mother slammed the door in his face. To this day I can't fully decide whether or not that decision was made in my best interest or hers. Though she would give her life for me, she also didn't want me to be separated from her. Lucky for her, she wouldn't be alive for that. As soon as the man and his friends left my house my mother forced me to get packed, that's what I was doing that night when she shoved me in a closet and told me not to make a noise. I heard it all.

"You thought that you'd made it out didn't you Annabelle." A man said

"I should of known that you'd catch up to me" they must have been just outside the closet by the sound of their voices.

"Where are your children?"

"They left with their father."

"Search the place." I heard people begin to move around the roo the patterns of the foot steps told me that there were about four walking around.

"Make this easy on yourself Annabelle, we already have the boy, what's his name Beau?"

"Please, just let him go, you don't need them" I could tell by the tremble in her voice that she was crying.

Someone was walking to the closet, I held my breath as the door knob began to turn and then I heard my mother cry out and run across the room away from me and then the chambering of a bullet, then ringing. I must have made a noise, a whimper, or knocked into something because moments later the door was opened. I stared at the men attempting to talk to me and to my horror I began to read their lips.

 _Are you Alexandrine?_ a blonde man in his mid-forties was asking.

 _She can't hear you_ _Doctor, look at her ears._ A man to the "doctor's" right said.

I touched my ears and my hands came back wet with blood I looked at them distressed.

 _No, she can't hear us but she knows what we're saying, don't you fraulein?_ I nodded back at the man something made me want to trust him. _Fascinating,_ they were all looking at me in awe now.

 _What do we do with her?_ The other man asked.

 _Would you like to go to Neverland Alexandrine?_ What would you do if you were an eight year old who had no one to look after you and someone offered to take you to a land that you'd read about and seen in movies where there are no worries and you never grow old? I'll tell you what you'd do; you'd take Pan's hand and let him whisk you away. You'd begin your great adventure without even contemplating the consequences, and that's what I did.

Let me tell you now, it's either not at all, or exactly what you are thinking.


	2. The Facility

There was a black SUV waiting outside of my house, we all loaded in and set off. That was quick, what wasn't quick was the drive. I spent hours of it staring at the radio, willing myself to hear anything at all. Eventually my mind wondered off to Beau, like many days before this one I wondered how he was doing, I knew that he'd be fine but my mom was so convinced that he'd be changed. My mom who was now dead because of the men who I was now on a road trip with. All so suddenly it dawned on me that these men where not my friends, that I was not safe with them, and where ever they were taking me wasn't a place full of wonder, I needed to get away. I glanced around the car at all of the men, by their posture they weren't the least bit concerned with the little girl in the back seat. Big mistake.

I stretched out on the bench seat so they couldn't see me plot, it began by looking for something to use as a weapon. I ran my fingers across the carpet until they brushed against something cold, something metal. I wrapped my fingers around the cylinder shaped object and pulled it out from under the seat. I observed it and tested its weight in my hand. This mag light would be my only offense. If they were paying attention even the slightest bit then sitting up too soon might alert them and I wasn't taking any chances, so I counted out the seconds. Ten minutes was all I could take before sitting up. There was a single building coming up on the right, aside from that there was nothing but weeds and road. My best bet would be to try to make it to the building and pray that there was someone in there.

"I have to pee" I tried my hardest to sound genuine, what it sounded like and if they had responded was a mystery to me but they did pull over.

The man sitting on the passenger's side in the middle row got out and held the door for me, adrenaline kicked in as I swung the flash light. It connected to the temple of the man still sitting on the driver's side and I threw myself over the seat and out of the vehicle. As soon as my feet hit the dirt I ducked to avoid the man's outstretched arms, I swung with both hands this time and hit the man standing by the door on the side of the knee cap and ran like hell. I could hardly feel my feet touch the ground or the weeds whipping at my bare skin. The building was getting closer by the second and I was screaming so loud that I could actually hear it. The door to the building flew open and a man stepped out onto the porch. My throat tightened up and tears started running down my face, I'd never known relief to feel like this.

"HELP ME," I bellowed. "PLEASE HELP ME."

The man started sprinting toward me, and I was beginning to think that I had really done it, I had actually saved myself. Then I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. My legs gave out beneath me and I fell forward onto my face, the dirt and rocks scraping at it and my knees as I slid. I tried to fight the sudden disorientation and drowsiness, I put one hand out in front of me and pulled myself forward. My stomach and chest were rubbing raw quickly, I lifted my head up slowly, it felt like a ball of lead on a rubber stick, and looked out ahead of me. There was about eight yards left between me and the man still running toward me. He was an older man with a bald head, kind of heavy set and a really kind face. I would never forget it.

Before the man could close even one of those yards I heard, very faintly, the sound of a gunshot and he dropped. All hope left me then, and I let myself fall asleep.

 _I was running again, only this time through water that came up to my thighs. I could hear my mother scream at me not to turn around, to just keep going. I was running to the shore where Beau was waiting for me, and I was so close. I ran and I ran but I didn't get any closer. RUN, I heard her scream again, but I didn't want to run anymore. I heard it then, the roar of rushing water, so I turned around to look. Behind me there was no rushing water, in fact the water just stopped about a foot behind me as if there was a piece of glass placed there. I started to search for the noise but I couldn't find anything. When I turned back to look at my brother he was no longer there, the sound of the rushing water was all there was._

When I woke up I was no longer in the SUV. I was up and moving too fast for my eyes, my head reeled but I kept scooting back until my back hit the wall. I could hear paper crackling underneath me and my frantic breathing, which was a good sign. I rubbed my eyes frantically and slowly the blotches lessened. I had to squint then, it was almost like looking directly into the sun. The walls surrounding me were all white, there was a sink and cupboard in the corner of the room beside a black door. The floor was black tile and there were a couple of machines used for testing someone's blood pressure. The bed that I had woken up on was just that, I was in a doctor's office. I rested my head on the wall behind me and sighed in relief.

 _Maybe someone else was in the house, maybe there never was a house and it was all a dream._

The cuts on my body proved the latter thought process to be wrong but there was still hope for the first one, I got out of bed and onto my feet. Though the tiles were cold my feet burned, and I winced as I stepped. They must have shot me with some sort of tranquilizer and the effects must have not fully worn off yet because it was hard not to stagger. Finally, I made it to the door, my arms were so pathetic I could barely get my hand to the door knob. My heart sank when it wouldn't open.

 _Maybe it's locked to keep people out or maybe the staff just doesn't want a hysterical little girl running out and upsetting the other patients._

I wanted to believe that, but I knew that wasn't so. I could have looked for a weapon, could have hid, could have plotted another escape, but what use would it be? For all I knew there were hundreds of men here just waiting for me to try and run here, and who's to say that these men wouldn't use real bullets. Who's to say that they wouldn't kill me with more inhumane methods. I walked back to the hard black hospital bed on the opposite side of the room and straightened out the paper, it made me wish that I had made my bed more often when my mother had asked me to. I rested my head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, it was just as the walls were. It had the same bight white paint with the same sporadic texture. There were two fogged glass panes omitting white florescent light, the room recreated the color for me. From this moment on the color white would no longer remind me of angels, purity or goodness, instead it would remind me of alienation; oblivion; incarceration.

There was no way of knowing just how much time had passed before the door had opened but when it had a woman in an all black scrubs entered the room. She might have been pretty under different circumstances but in the white light she might have been the ugliest woman that I had ever seen.

"Hello Alexandrine, I will be your nurse." I just stared at her blankly, I felt as if there were no more emotions left in the world.

The ugly nurse took my blood and vitals, the whole time not bothering to start a conversation. I didn't mind that, or the blank stare she had that reflected my own. What I did mind was the fact that she wasn't truly emotionless, that she couldn't look at my face the entire time because it would break her. It made me loath her even more. The poor, weak, ugly nurse couldn't stand to look at the eight year old girl that had been taken from her home. It was pathetic.

"I'll be back with your results in just a moment," she said more to the door than to me as she was walking out.

I sat up in bed and stared at the door, she would make eye contact with me, I would break her. I probably would have had she returned but a different woman in black scrubs came in her place. She had dark hair and pale blue eyes, she was heavier set and appeared to be in her mid-forties. She would have been ugly in any light but she wasn't weak.

"You're blood work has come back." She had a very thick Russian accent.

"Where's the other one?" My voice sounded alien to me, it was as if someone else was speaking through me, a girl who wasn't quite a girl anymore.

"She has been reassigned to another patient."

"She was weak."

"I am not." She was making eye contact, her stare must have frozen countless others but it couldn't freeze me, not now. "And neither are you."

"Both of these I know." I mimicked her voice completely as I had so often done to my mother when I was trying to be irritating, which was often.

"Impressive," she tried to remain a statue but I could see that I had unsettled her, she wasn't weak but I could see that she wouldn't bend. "You're blood work has confirmed what the Doctor had suspected, you have the x gene and shall be permitted to stay in our custody."

 _Oh joy._

After our meeting the woman lead me to a hall lined with beds, most of which had an occupant. I counted 30 but some of the beds were sectioned off behind curtains and I was unable to see whether or not there was anyone behind them. All 30 were men, all extremely ill and much older than I yet I was given a bed and told to remain in it. That must have been days ago now, and as to be predicted I hadn't stayed in bed, the first two days I had spent walking up and down the isles speaking to the men who were still well enough to. One in particular stood out, he had befriended the men around him, lifting their hopes with his jokes. Often I found myself on one of the beds near him.

"Where'd they pick you up kid?" he had asked me the first time I had shown up.

"Streets in New Orleans" I don't know why I lied, maybe because I didn't want the pitty party, maybe I just wasn't ready to say it.

"I think an orphanage would've been a better option for you."

"Not really my style."

"Well, can't really argue with that," he knew, somehow, that I was lying but I will always thank him for not saying anything. "I'm Wade."

"Alex."

"Pull up a seat gutter punk."

I listened to their talk of home, of what ailed them, but what caught my interest the most was their "Dead pool". They all put bet on who would die first as if it didn't bother them in the slightest, as if to them there was no other possible outcome and for Wade, there didn't seem to really be one. Cancer had found its way into almost all of his body, but I wanted his survival more than my own.

When the third day came around I found myself struggling to get out of bed, I kept falling back to sleep, every time I tried to get up I would exert myself quickly and waking up again later. There was no way to tell what time it was when I had gotten up since there were no clocks or windows in the hallway, but I went straight to Wade.

"You, okay gutter punk?" his concern was touching but it wasn't why I'd come.

"Don' worry bout me," my voice sounded hoarse. "Da foods jus shit thas all."

"Woah, you've got a mouth kid."

"A pretty one at that," one of the guards chimed in.

The man made me shiver to my core, he looked feral. Almost more beast than man, and built like a tank.

"This isn't the deliverance, Victor." Wade sat up and looked at the man with a challenging stair, he just huffed and walked away, but he kept his eyes on me. He watched me as if he was a predator and I was his next meal.

"Stay away from him Alex," Wade's tone was really starting to upset me now. "Do you hear me?"

"Yea I hear ya." I stood up off the bed and almost collapsed, "I think I'm gunna go rest some."

"Yea you do that kid," I heard him whisper as I walked back to my bed.

The next few days I spent in bed listening to everyone cough and groan around me. I hadn't realized just how grim this place really was without Wade's joking. So I tried to focus on him, to hear him and his friends but I just wound up falling to sleep. It was a dreamless sleep that I woke from many times, each time my eyes would stay open less than before. The last time the feral man was standing in front of my bed.

"You'll never make it princess," he said with his low growl of a voice. "Just give up now." His words slowed and gurgled as I slipped back into my slumber. When I rose from my sleep again I summoned all of my strength to get out of bed and stumble back to Wade. Each step seemed to come up short of the last and I had to use the beds to keep myself from toppling over, but none the less I made it. I was pleased to see that he was sleeping so that he hadn't seen me struggle, but as soon as I sunk into the bed beside his, his eyes slowly flickered open.

"Hey gutter punk, good to see you." Sleep still lingered on him but he tried his best to sit up and look at me. "You go anywhere nice for your vacation?"

"Yea, home." There was a silent acknowledgement, that I wasn't an orphan and that there was no getting out of this alive. "Is it too late to get in on that dead pool?"

"Kid…" He was silent for a minute, "I'd bet on you to make it."

"I wouldn't," he gaped at me for a moment, "I'm younger, weaker, than all of ya. I wasn't even sick when I got'ere but now I can't even get outta bed, and don' look at me like that. I'm not scared to die Wade, I want it." I choke on the shocking truth of my words for a moment. "They killed m'mom, m'dad is a cock suckin pig who don' want nothin to do with me, and m'brother he's gotta family that he already has to take care of. I've got no one, no where." My eyes burnt but I refused to let a tear fall. "Not anymore."

"Listen to me kid, you're stronger than the lot of us if you really want to die than you're going to have to try for it."

"Then I will." I didn't even have enough time to say goodnight, sleep descended on me faster than I had ever known it to.

The next time that I woke I was back in my own bed and much worse than I had been before. My vision was blurry, my breathes shallow and rugged, my entire body felt as if it had been dipped into liquid nitrogen, and my ears kept popping so it was almost impossible to listen for Wade. I rolled over in bed curling into the stiff blankets and noticed what I hadn't before, there was an IV set up for me and currently giving me fluids, and the hazardous wastes was full of syringes.

 _How long have I been out?_

The curtain was closed sectioning me off from the rest of the group so I couldn't see who was still out there, but the longer I listened for Wade and his friends the more certain I was that they had fallen silent. Completely silent. There was no light left in this world now, what little hope I had came from his jokes and now there would be no more of them. I rolled back onto my back and pulled the blankets down off of my shoulders and onto my waist so that way my torso was exposed. I wrapped my fingers around the tubes in my arm and tightened my grip to pull, maybe it wouldn't end my life entirely but it would be a start.

"Wait," I heard a familiar voice call out. It was one I'd heard many times, one that I had been so accustom to hearing and yet hearing it now was utterly impossible.

"Momma," my voice was no more than a whisper and it strained me to do so.

"Yes baby, I'm here." I turned my head and saw her sitting in a plastic chair set aside in the corner.

"Momma," I sobbed out to her. "I don' want to be here." I knew she couldn't be real but I wanted to believe that she was.

"I know baby, but you can't give up now," her voice was soft and nurturing as it always had been and I wanted nothing more than to get out of bed and run to her.

"How can I stay when I have no one?" My sobs made it all the more difficult to speak but I continued. "They're going to hurt me here, I know that they are."

"Yes, they are." I could see her forehead furrow and her eyes glaze over, she looked so real. "But the only way to beat them is to hold on," she was choking on her words the same way I did when I was trying not to cry, "Beau will come, he loves you very very much, and when he does you should be alive for him to rescue."

I couldn't bring myself to speak, I just kept shaking my head over and over trying to clear the lump in my throat as tears poured down my face.

"Alex, please hold on for me," she stood and began to walk to my bed. "I never wanted them to take you but I had always intended for you to live. Please, you must never stop fighting, for me."

I remembered hearing the gunshots that ended her life as I sat in the closet and still wanting to get away from those men, I remember when I first got to the facility, which must have been over a week ago now, and how I had stayed in the room so I wouldn't get shot. I had no one then either but I had still wanted to live.

"I won't." I said and in an instant the lump in my throat was gone and the tears had stopped.

"Promise me." She was standing beside my bead now and I was beginning to slip back into my sleep.

"I promise," I said as I began to close my eyes.

"That's my girl." I felt her hands brush my forehead, but before I could ponder that any further I was asleep again.


End file.
